Innovation: Figures in the Sand

The Game

I have been playing Innovation with younger daughter Chen Rui frequently. We both enjoy the game. Some time ago I had purchased the expansion Figures in the Sand, but it sat on the shelf for many years. Now finally it can see some use. Chen Rui and my default mode in playing Innovation is with this expansion now. 

The card backs in this expansion are green, so you can easily tell the cards apart. During game setup, the expansion cards are kept separate and stacked below the base game cards and rotated by 90 degrees. The expansion cards are only drawn under specific situations. Normally you only draw the base cards. When one stack of base cards is exhausted, that age is considered to have ended and you move on to draw base cards from the next age. You don't continue to draw expansion cards from the current age.

Cards in Figures in the Sand are all famous people and leaders from history. You can only have one active leader at any one time. Whenever you have two leaders as your top cards, you must remove one of them and place the removed leader in your score pile. Figures in the Sand is the second expansion for Innovation. It uses some mechanisms that were first introduced in the first expansion. For me to be able to play this expansion, I need to learn the rules to both the first and second expansion.

This is one of the leader cards. In the game leaders are called figures. The figures themselves do not have dogma abilities, which means you do not directly activate them or use them to perform any action. Instead they enhance other actions you take. In this photo above the light square with text inside is an echo, a mechanism first introduced in the first expansion. When you perform a dogma action on a splayed stack of cards, you get to execute every echo power from bottom to top before you perform the dogma action itself. 

This is called a decree. It is a new type of achievement introduced in Figures in the Sand. To issue a decree, you need to have three figures from three different ages in hand. You return them all along with all other hand cards to issue a decree. This is very expensive, but a decree is a very powerful. You not only get to perform this powerful action, you also get to claim the decree card, which is an achievement. That means you are one step closer to victory. A decree is vulnerable, as in you might lose it. If another player issues a decree of the same type, you will be forced to return your decree card to the centre of the table. After that, whoever issues the same decree again gets to claim the decree card. There are 5 types of decrees, one in each colour. Due to the introduction of decrees, The win condition is increased. When playing with this expansion, you need one additional achievement to win.

That copper coin at the bottom left represents points. Now you get points not only from cards in your score pile but also from visible copper coins in your play area. If you have multiple copper coins, only one of them counts based on the value shown. Other copper coins are worth only 1 point. 

The fuzzy circle is an inspire power. Inspiring is a new game mechanism which is roughly an enhanced version of the draw action. When you perform an inspire action you must first pick one specific stack in your play area. You will be performing a draw action based on the top card of this stack only, not based on the highest top card in your whole play area. However if there are visible inspire powers in this stack, you get to execute them all before you perform this draw action. 

I have played several games using this expansion, but up to now I still have not used the inspire power even once. I wonder whether it is because I have been playing only two player games, so the game ends earlier and we do not have much opportunity to splay many cards or reveal many inspire powers.  

The Play

The figures introduced come with lots of interesting and strong powers. Figures are drawn only under two situations. Firstly, when an opponent claims a normal achievement, i.e. based on score. This makes claiming a figure a catch-up mechanism. Your opponent is making progress, you get a figure. Secondly, when you perform a dogma action and your opponents who are stronger than you get to piggyback on your action, you also draw a figure. This is also a catch-up mechanism, because your stronger opponent is taking advantage of you. This second situation creates incentive to intentionally take dogma actions even when it can benefit your opponent. Sometimes you want to do this for the sake of drawing a figure. Sometimes a dogma power may not be very useful for your opponent, or it might even hurt your opponent. You can intentionally force them to use your dogma power and at the same time let you draw a figure. Sometimes the weak can bully the strong.

The decrees are terrible! When I read some of these powers, I imagine the victim losing it and flipping the table. That bad. It is not easy to issue a decree. You don't get to draw figures all that often, and you need figures from three different ages. However there are some figures which make it easier to issue decrees.

Some of the figures in the expansion affect things I have never seen before. For example some figures temporarily increase your number of icons based on specific conditions. This translates to your civilisation being more powerful as long as this particular leader is still around. Some figures add cards to the achievement area. Normally there is one copy each of cards numbered 1 to 9 in the achievement area. If cards are added, it means more opportunities for everyone to claim achievements. There is an additional challenge if you try to claim a numbered achievement which you already have. For example to clean the number 2 achievement you need to have 10 points. If you want to claim your second number 2 achievement you need 20 points. If there is a third one, you'd need 30 points before you can claim it. Some figures grant you a virtual achievement which does not require adding any card to the pool of available achievements if you fulfil a specific condition. So you can see how figures can really shake things up and give you surprises.

When I play with this expansion, I feel that 80% of the time I am still playing the base game, in terms of the cards I actually play with. You don't draw figures all that often. However they can have a big impact. The game play experience changes significantly even though only a handful of figures ever appear each game. I like this change. I don't mind that Innovation is still mostly Innovation.

When I was back in my hometown Kota Kinabalu, Chen Rui and I played using my mother's mahjong table. The size of the table was just nice. If we had three players it would not be enough.

This was one interesting situation we had. I only had one icon type - castles. I had many castles and nothing else.

Younger daughter Chen Rui

In this particular game we managed to draw an Age 10 card. This is very rare. We do 2-player games and normally our games end at Age 6 or 7. Sometimes we reach Age 8, but it is very rare to get to Age 9 or 10. This particular card helped me win, because at the time I had more achievements than Chen Rui. 

Both these figures help in issuing decrees. If you have one of them as an active leader you only need two other figures (of any age) to issue a decree. 

The unusual thing about this particular game was we skipped most of the Age 2 and 3 cards. We had access to Age 4 cards, and after playing them as top cards, we continued drawing cards from there on. 

When mum and the aunties needed to use the mahjong table, Chen Rui and I played using the coffee table. Thankfully the size was just right. 

The Thoughts

I don't quite remember whether I have played the first expansion of Innovation - Echoes of the Past. I probably did. I quite enjoyed Figures in the Sand. It has many interesting and fun cards. There are quite a few new rules, so this is meant for experienced players. I still remember Innovation the base game was hard to learn for a new player. Don't start your Innovation journey with any expansion. For experienced players, it might take a few games to get comfortable with all the new rules. Once they become second nature, the gameplay is smooth. 

My gut feel is you should not play Innovation with more than one expansion. Now I have not tried this yet, so this is just my guess. With more than one expansion, my guess is it might be too much work and too many things to think about all at the same time. The latest version of Innovation is called Innovation Ultimate, and it is being released now. I have preordered a copy. It has all the previous expansions plus one all new expansion. I'm going to try two expansions at the same time to see if it works well. My copy of Innovation is the first edition. By now the base game is up to the fourth edition, and it has been tweaked. I'm pretty happy even with the first edition, and I don't feel it needs to be tweaked. Well, maybe I'm not expert enough at it yet to see issues that others see. I'm actually a little worried whether I would dislike the tweaked latest edition because I'm too used to the first edition. 

Chen Rui is going overseas to study in September. We won't be able to do impromptu Innovation games like we do now. I found out that the game is free to play on BoardGameArena.com though. So maybe I can still arrange to play with her on BGA. 

Dancing Queen international English/French edition from Matagot

The international English/French edition of Dancing Queen will be released on 21 Jun 2025. It will use  a wallet game format, similar to those released by Button Shy Games. Product photos have been uploaded to BoardGameGeek.com. I am looking forward very much to it. Matagot has given the game new art and also made an adjustment to the theme, to better fit the Western market. The game mechanisms are unchanged. 

This is my first time having a game published by a big international publisher, and I am absolutely stoked. I am excited that my game will reach the hands of many more players around the world. I hope it brings joy and a new interesting experience to players. 

Fifty Fifty

The Game 

Fifty Fifty is a card game in which players take turns playing cards to a central row. Sometimes when you do not have the right card or when you decide not to play the right card, you will be forced to take cards from the row as a penalty. The goal of the game is to have the least penalty when the deck runs out. 

The cards in the game are numbered 1 to 100, plus there are some fox cards. A third of the numbered cards are purple, the rest orange. The central row must be in ascending order. This is the golden rule. When you play a card, you can only add it to the end. If the card you play has a number lower than the last card, you would be breaking the golden rule. Thus you must remove cards from the end of the row until your card play becomes valid. This can mean removing the whole row if your card is lower than all the cards in the row. Cards being removed are your penalty. You place them in your personal penalty pile. They don’t go to your hand. Now if you are only removing one card from the end, and it is orange, you don’t take the penalty. You give that removed card to the previous player (who has just played that card), and you also give him a card from your penalty pile. What this means is it is always a little risky to play an orange card if it is much larger than the current last card. The next player may force you to take it as a penalty AND give you one more penalty card.

The fox cards are used for passing. When you play a fox (it has no number), you don’t need to take any penalty. The next player may play a number card and take the fox as a penalty, and he may need to take more numbered cards as penalty too, following the golden rule. Alternatively, the next player may decide to play a fox too, avoiding the penalty. 

There is a special "Fifty" rule. When another player plays a number card and you have a number card with a difference of exactly 50, you may declare “Fifty” to interrupt play. Everyone takes turns playing foxes, and the first person unable to do so is forced to take the whole row and all foxes played. 

You have a hand size of five. On your turn you play a card and then draw a card. The game is played until the deck runs out. Then some specific rules apply for game end, which I find a little complicated. Generally you don’t want to have any more foxes in hand because you’d automatically lose. Also once anyone runs out of cards, the player with the lowest card in hand must take the central row and everyone’s hand cards. After all is done, the player with the least penalty wins. 

The Play

So far I have only played two-player games against Chen Rui. The rules aren’t complex, but I have difficulty working out the strategy. I keep losing, often by a huge margin, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. My first instinct is when I can play a card which won’t give me any penalty, I should play it. If I have several such cards, I should play the lowest among them, so that on the following turns I will still have more options available. However I find this might not be the best way to play. This is a game about hand management. You will sooner or later take some cards. It is about how to minimise cards you take in the long term. 

One thing I did was this. When I was almost out of cards which I could play that would not lead to penalty, instead of just reactively delaying the pain for as long as I could, I played a card which made me take many of the cards but set the card row to a situation which was helpful to me. The reason I did this was I felt that had I dragged on, I would be taking all those cards anyway. So I might as well take them now but position myself better. If I had a series of cards which were close, I would play the lowest card. In a 2-player game, the card my opponent played would probably be somewhat larger, and I would then be able to play a card between the last two cards. If her card was orange, I would force her to take it as a penalty and also take one penalty card from me. This was one tactic I worked out. I'm not sure it's effective, but that's the best I could come up with. Also this might not work for 3 or more players. The tactics may be different when the number of players is different. 

The Thoughts

I don't really understand the game yet, so I have no concrete conclusion. I understand the rules, I don't understand the strategy. I'm not sure whether this is a luck-heavy game, or there are tactics that can be used to mitigate luck. At the moment, the game is still a curiosity to me. Fifty Fifty has similarities to 6 Nimmt (Category 5 / 6 Takes) and Mon. I suspect it works better with more players. I am guessing that the luck element is high, and there is only a little you can do to manage luck. Deciding when and whether to call "Fifty" and also when to use a fox can have big implications. You may want to stock up on foxes, and find a good time to unleash them. However having more foxes also means you have fewer numbered cards, and thus fewer options. I should try this again with more players, and see how the play experience changes. 

Architects of the West Kingdom

The Game

Architects of the West Kingdom is a popular game. It is a successful game and is now one of three independent games in the West Kingdom series. Recently when I visited Allen, he encouraged me to borrow some games to play with my daughters. I picked Architects of the West Kingdom because I was curious to see what it was like. Allen has many unplayed games so sometimes I do homework for him, reading the rules and then teaching him to play. Or I just play with my children so at least he feels better that the games don't stay unplayed. 

This is a worker placement game. Everybody starts with a large team of workers, many more than the typical worker placement game. There is a reason for this. Similar to other games, when you place a worker at a specific location, you gain some benefit associated with that location. However, workers generally do not block other players. You can send workers to occupied locations. In fact, you can even send workers to locations where you already have workers. When you do this, the action of your most recent worker becomes more powerful. The more colleagues they have, the more powerful the action. This is an interesting aspect of the game.

Another interesting aspect is how you can capture your opponents' workers. You hold them on your player board and can later send them to prison to earn a reward. Of course your opponents can do the same to you. You will have to visit the prison to release your workers. You can capture your own workers too. In this case it is just for show. They simply come back to your player board to wait for their next assignment. When you see an opponent having many workers at the same location, you'll have to seriously consider capturing them, because otherwise their action will become more and more powerful. When captured, your opponent will need to start accumulating workers all over again. In this game there is no concept of an end of round when all workers are released from all locations. It is up to the players when they want to capture workers and when they want to collect them from the prison.

The progress of the game is based on the construction of buildings and the cathedral. These building cards above are collected by players and built by paying the resources depicted. Buildings provide special abilities and victory points. The cathedral is a joint project. It is never completed, but each player is able to contribute at most five times throughout the game. Those who contribute earlier will get to enjoy some benefit. You also score points when you contribute. Slots are limited so if you are late you may not be able to contribute. The game ends after a specific number of construction actions are performed.

These are apprentices you can recruit. Some buildings require apprentices with specific skills. Apprentices have various abilities, for example gathering extra resources when you visit a certain location. They augment your abilities and encourage you to use specific locations more.  

This above is another unique aspect of the game. This is the virtue track. Every player has a marker here. Some things you do in the game increase or decrease your virtue. At the end of the game you may gain or lose victory points depending on your standing. When your virtue is above a certain level, you may no longer visit the black market. You are a reputable person now so you cannot be caught doing something shady like this. When your virtue is below a certain level, you may not contribute to building the cathedral. The bishop does not welcome you. However there is a benefit to being a scoundrel. When performing certain actions, you may openly avoid tax. Instead of paying the tax collector, you save your cash. 

The resources are marble, brick, gold, wood, and stone. 

The is the prison. When you send workers here to use this location, you may deliver your opponents' workers for a reward, you may release your own workers, you may pay money to release your workers from another player's player board, and you may repay your debts. If you end the game in debt, you will lose points. 

This on the left is the guild hall. Whenever you want to build, place a worker here. This worker will be permanently locked. The game ends when all the available slots are filled. The cathedral is on the right. Every player may contribute at most 5 times, but the slots at every level of contribution are limited. This is on a first come first served basis. 

This on the left is the tax stand. Whenever players need to pay tax for performing an action the tax goes here. One action you can do is to come here to steal all the money. As the pile of coins grows, this becomes more and more tempting. However if you do come to steal, your virtue drops by two levels as indicated by the two broken banner icons.

The Play

Although I would categorise Architects of the West Kingdom as a worker placement game and a resource collection and conversion game, it is not at all like the average Eurogame. It offers several interesting mechanisms. Capturing workers is an interesting dynamic. You don't want to let your opponents take too powerful actions. You need to manage your pool of workers carefully. Capturing your opponents' workers can disrupt their tempo. I did a two player game with younger daughter Chen Rui, and she made good use of the worker capture mechanism. She locked up many of my minions and gave my HR girl a tough time. Once I had to spend a large sum of money to directly save my workers from her player board. I could not wait for her to deliver them to the prison, where I could have rescued them for free.  

If your buildings and apprentices combo well, it helps. I recruited several apprentices which gave me bonuses whenever I visited the black market. Naturally I visited the black market often and my virtue went down the drain. For a long time I could not contribute to building the cathedral. Only after mid game I started to work on improving my virtue. I eventually became a respected citizen, but it took conscious effort and dedication. Since I missed out on many opportunities to build the cathedral, I could not catch up to Chen Rui at all. I basically gave up on the cathedral. The points weren't much, but the bonuses were good. Having low virtue is not so much about tax evasion. I find that the more important benefit is the flexibility to take some (in-game) morally questionable actions. For example I recruited some unsavoury characters. I find this virtue mechanism funny and at the same time sobering. We mostly don't set out to be a bad person. Turning bad is about small everyday decisions, when we condone bending some rules here and there. We turn bad without realising it is happening. There is a moral to the story here. 

My first building and my first three apprentices all made me lose virtue (the broken banner icon). Only by my last apprentice I recruited someone who could help me improve my virtue (banner icon). 

The Thoughts

Architects of the West Kingdom is a worker placement game that has something fresh to offer, and it has an interesting player dynamic. The capturing of workers, the subsequent workers being more powerful, and the virtue concept all create an interesting play experience. This is a strategy game I'd heartily recommend. 

Carcassonne Maps: Great Britain

The Game

Carcassonne Maps is a series of Carcassonne expansions. Carcassonne is a boardgame with no board, and Carcassonne Maps turns it back to a game with a board. You will need not only the base game but also at least one more expansion with tiles. Every Carcassonne Maps expansion requires a certain number of tiles, and those in the base game are not enough. There are some common rules across the Carcassonne Maps series, and each map has some unique rules too. Although you use tiles from other Carcassonne expansions, you won't use the rules associated with them. 

Let's first talk about the common rules across the different maps. Each map has several starting positions. You place the standard starting tile on one of these positions, and draw random tiles for the others. When placing tiles, they must expand out from these starting positions, similar to standard Carcassonne. You don't place tiles anywhere you like. Squares have been drawn on the map, and you can only place tiles in these squares. The concept of a border is introduced - borders as in the edges of the playable areas. When you place a tile on a border space, any feature touching the border is considered closed off. For example you still have an open-ended castle, but the only remaining open end is on the border. In this case the castle is considered complete and you score it. The same goes for roads and monasteries. The borders on the maps help players complete features. 

Those face-down round tokens have point values. They come in three colours, and they are worth 1 or 2 points. Not all the maps use these tokens, but quite many do. They are used in different ways on different maps. Generally when you place a tile on a space with a round token, you claim that token and score the points on it. As you collect tokens, you will be able to use them in some other way. 

The Isle of Man is the unique mechanism on the Great Britain map. At the end of your turn, you may place a meeple here to take an additional turn. Your meeples here are temporarily unavailable to you. They are freed when you have three round tokens of different colours or three round tokens of the same point value. When either of these happen, you must turn in the combination and retrieve all your meeples. You know the colour distribution of the round tokens up front - blue in the north, purple in the south, and orange in the west. So you can somewhat plan to collect the right colours at the right time. 

The maps have towns, and they are an optional variant. If you use the town variant, you lose 2 points for covering a town, but you get to take an extra turn. Also when completing a road, every town next to the road gives you 2 points. 

The Play

Most of the elements in Carcassonne have not changed. The biggest difference to me is the impact of the borders. Completing features becomes a bit easier. However since the maps do come with some features, these introduce a new challenge. When you lay tiles, your tiles must match these features. Overall I find Carcassonne Maps slightly more challenging. The features on the map include major cities which appear as partial castles. They tend to be lucrative and they entice players to expand towards and claim them. 

Our London did not grow to become a large castle, only a chubby camel. 

The point tokens and Isle of Man are simple variants. It's nice to have some alternative ways of playing, but these are not something radically different from the original. I find the existence of the map itself is the main attraction which introduces a new play experience. 

In our game, despite using the recommended number of tiles, by the time we were done, about 20% of the spaces was still not yet filled. 

The Thoughts

Well, this is an expansion, so it is for people who already like Carcassonne. If that's you, then the maps will offer a fun and new experience. It's different enough to be interesting. Before playing I had imagined gameplay to be more restrictive, since the play area is fixed. Now that I have played it, I find that you often still have many options on your turn. The concept of the borders gives you a new tool to complete features. The features on the map also give some context and create objectives you strive for. 

Ticket to Ride: Nederland

The Game

Before I wrote this blog post, I counted. I currently own 9 copies of games and expansions in the Ticket to Ride series. I had not planned to buy Nederland. Allen came across it being on sale at a deep discount. He asked whether I wanted to get a copy, and I couldn't resist. Nederland is an expansion, and you can only play it if you have the base game or Ticket to Ride Europe.  

One unique element of Nederland is how it entices (or pressures) players to claim routes early. There is a toll mechanism in the game. Everyone starts with some money. Whenever you build tracks, you must pay a toll. Most connections between two cities have two routes. If you are first to claim one of them, you pay the toll to the bank. If later another player claims the other route, they must pay the toll fee to you. This means if you are early, you get a rebate. Managing your cash and getting these rebates are important because at game end, you compare how much money you have left, and you score points based on ranking. Everyone gets points except for the last player. The player with the most leftover cash gets 55 points! 

The point values of the tickets in the game are higher than the typical Ticket to Ride game. Normally the point value of a ticket is simply the shortest distance between the two cities. On the Netherlands map this is not the case. Ticket values can go up to 34 points! So far I only know the Japan map also diverges from this convention. 

The Play

It was only when I sat down to play that I realised it is easy to get blocked off on the Netherlands map. We did a four-player game. If it were a 5-player game, the blocking would be worse. So claiming routes early is important not only because you hope to get the rebate, it can be crucial to ensure you don't get cut off. In our game, Shee Yun was completely cut off from a city she needed to go to and she lost points for one of her tickets. 

There are loan cards in the game (top right in this photo above). When you want to claim a route but you can't afford to pay the toll, you must take a loan card. Loans cannot be repaid in this game. Each costs you 5 points at game end. Also you are disqualified from the bonus for leftover cash.

When you decide to draw new tickets, you draw five and you must keep at least one. If you have built a decent network, it is worthwhile making a gamble on drawing new tickets. Since you get to draw five, chances are you'll get something that works for you. It is not risk-free, but the potential reward is tempting. Tickets are high valued. This aspect of having the urge to draw more tickets reminds me of the Switzerland map. It's wonderful when you get lucky and draw a ticket which you have already completed. 

These were my tickets at the end of the game, all completed. 

In our particular game, most of us chose routes nearer to the sea. It might be because most of the main cities were nearer to the sea. The half of the board nearer to the sea was pretty packed. The inland half not so much. We didn't have anyone taking loans. It was partly because many of us claimed the second route of a pair of routes, which meant money changed hands among players instead of going to the bank. However I suspect loans are not too common anyway. Still something you have to watch out for, but if you are careful enough it should not happen easily. 

The Thoughts

Ticket to Ride: Nederland is exciting! There is a heightened sense of urgency to claim routes early because you want those rebates and there is that fear of getting blocked off. Drawing tickets is also exciting. That lucky draw feeling is strong here. If you like the Ticket to Ride series, this is worth a try. The numbers in the game are big, and I'm not sure whether I am being tricked by this to think of the game as being more thrilling than it actually is. I get this feeling that I am making big bets. The stakes are high. Thus the adrenalin rush. When comparing leftover cash, the point difference between first and last place is 55 points. That is huge compared to the 10-point longest route bonus in basic Ticket to Ride. The tickets also have high point values, more than other variants. The points from the routes still remain the same as other games, so this aspect becomes less important. Go draw tickets! That's where the excitement lies! 

gamer, blogger, designer, or publisher

This blog post is a note to self. I need a space to do some thinking and reflecting. 

My first physically published game is Dancing Queen, released at the end of 2022. That was followed by Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs (early 2024) and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (mid 2024). In 2025 I am planning to publish Pinocchio and the Malaysian second edition of Dancing Queen. The international edition of Dancing Queen from Matagot will be released in June 2025. I have a fourth game project in 2025, Malaysian Holidays. This is a collaboration with Specky Studio. They are the publisher. I am the designer. When I first got into game publishing, I told myself I needed to set a 5-year plan and a checkpoint at the end of that. I was going to publish one game per year, and when I got to the fifth game I would do an assessment to decide whether and how to proceed with this publishing journey. I have already started thinking about this last year. I have been thinking about several related questions. Why am I doing this? Do I want to be a publisher or a designer? I more-or-less have an answer, but I have not really organised my thoughts properly or planned what's next. 

Matagot international edition of Dancing Queen

The why. Got to start with that. The rest follows. When I design and publish games, is that just to feed my ego? Am I looking for validation? Recently a student in my class asked a question which gave me much food for thought. "Do you do it because of the craftsmanship?" Do I do it because it is art? If this is my art, I should insist on the final work being how I have envisioned it to be. I probably wouldn't let another publisher publish my game. The game is a piece of art, not a product. Another possible why I have been thinking about is do I do this to make money. Do I want to build a business out of this? Since it is something I enjoy, I can have fun throughout the ride, but the end goal should be about building a sustainable business, a stable side income, or even turning this into a full-time business. I know these are not easy. Not impossible, but not easy at all. Sometimes I ask myself, why am I spending so much time, energy and money doing something that's not exactly profitable? Am I holding on to the hope that one day this will work out and become something sustainable? I tell myself that there is value in games. I want to spread the awareness and culture of playing games, particularly in Malaysia, where most people do not know modern boardgames. I hope more parents get to know about boardgames and play  boardgames with their children. I hope this creates happier and healthier families. I hope children learn through boardgames. They learn to communicate, to think, and to solve problems. They learn how to learn. Playing games is something valuable. Having fun and being happy is valuable in itself. I hope my games bring people joy. I hope they help people create happy memories. 

Or maybe I just want to play boardgames. If I go back to just being a regular gamer, plus doing some blogging to share my journey, that would be perfectly fine. Why go through all that trouble designing, testing, producing and selling games? Sometimes it seems designing and publishing games is for people who have too much time and money on their hands. This is not just in Malaysia. It's the same everywhere else. If you don't have a stable job, it's probably not a good idea to jump full-time into designing and publishing games. Unless you have set aside some savings that can sustain you for a while. Only people who really love boardgames and have spare time go into game design. I wonder whether going into game design a symptom of my mid-life crisis? 

My upcoming game Pinocchio

Considering the various whys above, the first one I can deprioritise is money. I know it's hard to make money from doing game design and publishing. I'm not counting on it to become my livelihood. At the same time, I also don't want it to become just an expensive hobby. I don't want to be the kind of person who burns money for an ego boost. So I want the games I publish to be quality games. Games which offer something of value. Games that people do want to buy, and will truly enjoy. I sometimes imagine being able to achieve what Oink Games of Japan has achieved. I read an interview of Jun Sasaki and was greatly inspired. He started his boardgames business as a side hustle, and now it has grown to become a company that can support a large team. They have released many good and successful games. If money is not the most important goal, then between being a designer and being a publisher, the latter is less important. Being a publisher involves a higher risk because you are putting your money on the line, but if things work out, you make more profit.

Should I just go back to be a normal gamer? Being a gamer doesn't directly conflict with being a designer or publisher. It is just about how I allocate my time. If I enjoy both, I can do both. I don't need my design and publishing work to feed my family, so I can do it at my own pace. I do enjoy doing it, and I can enjoy it like it is a hobby.  

The remaining two whys are creating art and promoting boardgames. Yes, creating good games is important to me. I do want to create something special, something that I can be proud of. This might conflict somewhat with promoting boardgames. When promoting boardgames, I need to think of the general public, the mass market, so the games I make will need to be games which they can understand and enjoy. If you want a summer blockbuster, you probably shouldn't be making artsy type films. It is not often we have films like Lord of the Rings which are artistically superb and at the same time also widely loved. Creating awareness of boardgames in Malaysia is a gargantuan task, certainly not something I can do singlehandedly. I just hope to be one of the contributors in this, playing a small part. Being able to find others who also want to do this together is wonderful. It is fun and not at all like the trip to Mordor. I sometimes tell follow Malaysian designers that if we the current cohort can persist until the local market grows to be more robust, we would by then be the makers and movers in the industry. We would have survived many hardships, learned many lessons and accumulated valuable experience. Pardon me - I am still thinking a bit about creating a profitable business here. How long will it take for the Malaysian boardgame market to be big enough to sustain a game designer or publisher? Five years? Ten? As Malaysian designers and publishers, we have a dilemma. If we want to make a living out of this, we probably should think internationally, because the local market is too small. But if we don't develop the local market, it will never grow to be a strong economical base.  

With my priorities clearer, it is easier to decide what I should be doing and what I should not be doing. What kind of games should I make? To promote boardgames to a wider audience, I should use themes which are attractive to them. I need to make easy games. I need to set prices which non-gamers find palatable. One thing I plan to do is to explore collaboration with a friend who is in the premium gifts business. We want to propose boardgames and card games as corporate gifts or merchandise. Some organisations use gifts for promotions and for marketing or branding. Recently ZUS Coffee in Malaysia gave away a simple card game as a promotion. By leveraging large organisations, I can put games into the hands of more people. When I designed Sabah Honeymoon for the STTOS competition, I imagined it being sold at souvenir shops. It is a game which tourists will buy and it will make them remember Sabah fondly. I chose to publish Pinocchio as my next game because it is a simple game which non-gamers can pick up easily and find the fun quickly. The price point is set low so that people who are only browsing can decide easily to buy a copy to try. 

Malaysian Holidays prototype. Photo by Choon Ean.

Another idea I have been toying with is to develop games about social issues. Games are a medium of communication. They can be a tool to bring awareness to important topics, and to trigger discussion. Think Daybreak. I can collaborate with organisations which champion specific issues, and use boardgames to support them while at the same time spread the awareness of boardgames. There are many boardgames which are designed to teach entrepreneurship and financial literary. I have seen some and I must say I feel disgusted, because from a game design perspective, they are bad games. However as gimmicks which attract potential buyers and as engagement tools during workshops, they serve their purposes. I hope I don't make this kind of game. Maybe I should work on a financial literacy game with modern boardgame sensibilities. Not yet another modified Snakes and Ladders please. 

I participated in many events last year. Many took up much time and energy, but were not very productive. I now tell myself to be more selective. I will skip some events. However I also need to remind myself that the value of an event is not just about the profit or achieving breakeven. If it is something that helps promote and spread awareness of boardgames, there is value. Whether I manage to sell many games is one measure of how well I have spread boardgames, but it is not the only measure. 

I needed to write all this to organise my thoughts. In my full-time work I sometimes coach and guide my students. I need to apply the same techniques to coach myself. I realise I should not think of myself as a gamer, blogger, designer or publisher. I should think of myself as a boardgame ambassador.  Working on boardgames is meaningful and valuable, and I'm going to keep at it.